Sunday, October 08, 2006

Carrying On

A few years back, when I was working in the Israeli Television as a subtitles translator, one of my colleagues was called Zecharia. He was the Yiddish and Russian translator. Most of us were students, in our twenties; he was much older, and would treat work much more seriously, always showing up with a suit and tie. He had a grey moustache, golden teeth and a certain kind of an outdated central European chick.

He would always ask me: how are you?I would say fine, and what about you Zecharia?And he would pause for a moment, then look up, raise his head (you could tell that he cherished those moments) and say ceremoniously, emphasising the words:We are carrying on.